As wildfires ravage Southern California, many evacuees have been separated from their pets while fleeing impacted areas.
Samantha Rose Baldwin, an actress who appeared in the Gossip Girl reboot, detailed the “terrifying” experience of running through the Palisades Fire to save her 10-year old tortoiseshell cat Kitty.
“It was an immediate spring into action and an amalgamation of questions racing through my head – can I get my cat out? Is my dad safe and getting ready to leave?” she explained to DailyMail.com.
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While her father was helping evacuate students at a nearby elementary school, where he worked as a security guard before it ultimately burned down in the fires, Baldwin attempted to get home.
With bumper-to-bumper traffic that would have taken her two hours to get to her apartment, Baldwin “decided to park my car and run,” adding: “I ran for about 15 minutes on Sunset Boulevard until I made it home.”
The actress said it “took 20 minutes for me to find her” once she got inside her apartment, as Kitty “had gone into her best hiding spot which was inside the couch. I grabbed her and wrapped her up in a blanket and put her inside my cat carrier backpack.”
“Once we got outside, the fire had gotten closer to us and the path going back to my car was now no longer an option,” she continued. “I thought to myself, ‘Where I am suppose to go?’ The fire was all around us. The terrifying part was when a big gust of wind and smoke came in so fast that you couldn’t see anything.”
Baldwin said, “Here I was stuck between the fire and the ocean, so it only made sense to get to the water. I was genuinely running for my life with my cat strapped to my back and a suitcase rolling behind me.
“I had to dart in and out of the cars and dodge flaming branches and palm leaves falling to the ground all around me like a minefield. It felt like something I would see or do in an action movie, not my real life,” she explained, adding: “While I was running towards the ocean, I called my Mom and told her I loved her. I honestly didn’t know if I was going to make it.”
Baldwin was reunited with her father and is now staying with a friend in North Hollywood.
“My body aches. I feel like I got hit by a bus and run over three times. I had so much ash on my face yesterday that I looked like I just walked out of Mad Max,” she noted. “My chest hurts and my throat is a bit scratchy, but overall I am so thankful to be alive, and that my Dad and cat are safe.”
Fires have broken out in the Pacific Palisades, Eaton Canyon, Malibu, the Hollywood Hills and other areas around Los Angeles County amid a “life-threatening and destructive” windstorm that picked up Tuesday.
As of Saturday, at least 11 people have died in the Southern California wildfires, which have forced approximately 105,000 people to evacuate the Palisades area, destroying at least 5,316 structures, including 426 homes. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has received 13 missing persons reports.
President Joe Biden, who extended his Los Angeles trip on Wednesday to visit first responders and those affected, declared the fires a major disaster.
“Over 100,000 people have been ordered to evacuate communities impacted by the Southern California wildfires,” wrote Biden on X. “At least two people have been killed. And many more are injured — including firefighters. It’s devastating. To the residents of Southern California: We are with you.”
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